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An Introduction to LINQ

T

he previous chapter introduced you to numerous C# 2008 programming constructs. As you have

seen, features such as implicitly typed local variables, anonymous types, object initialization syntax,

and lambda expressions (examined in Chapter 11) allow us to build very functional C# code. Recall

that while many of these features can be used directly as is, their benefits are much more apparent

when used within the context of the Language Integrated Query (LINQ) technology set.

This chapter will introduce you to the LINQ model and its role in the .NET platform. Here, you

will come to learn the role of query operators and query expressions, which allow you to define

statements that will interrogate a data source to yield the requested result set. Along the way, you

will build numerous LINQ examples that interact with data contained within arrays as well as vari-

ous collection types (both generic and nongeneric) and understand the assemblies and types that

enable LINQ.